5:29 pm

Sat October 6, 2012

Unemployment Numbers Are Kept Under Guard

And undoubtedly, the president and Governor Romney were up early Friday morning reading and eagerly awaiting the unemployment numbers. Almost immediately after they were announced, theories began to circulate that maybe, just maybe, the Bureau of Labor Statistics was cooking the books to help the president's re-election.

Back in August, Caitlin Kenney of NPR's Planet Money team went to investigate just why those numbers are such a closely held secret.

CAITLIN KENNEY, BYLINE: When these numbers come out, they move financial markets. Mike Shea works on Wall Street at Direct Access Partners. His company trades for big pension funds, hedge funds and mutual funds. He says on the morning of a release, everyone in his office is staring at their computer screens, waiting for the numbers to appear.

MIKE SHEA: I will be watching as closely as I can. I will be - as a client of mine says, we will be aggressively watching.

KENNEY: Shea says after the numbers appear, billions of dollars are traded in just the first 30 minutes. There's so much at stake. Just imagine if you knew what the numbers were going to be before the official release, before anyone else.

SHEA: Look, if the market's going to go down 2 percent in 10 seconds, and you sell before everybody else does, then you've just made a lot of money.

KENNEY: How much money could you make?

SHEA: I guess it would depend on how much money that you could put to work. If you had millions or billions, I suppose you could make millions or billions.

KENNEY: The Bureau of Labor Statistics knows this, so they do everything possible to keep these numbers locked up until the official release. Their security precautions are clear from the moment you set foot inside their office. I came here to talk to a BLS economist named Megan Barker, but when I asked to see her office...

MEGAN BARKER: I can't let someone who doesn't have the right clearance in.

KENNEY: What if I didn't have the microphone, could I go in?

BARKER: No.

(LAUGHTER)

KENNEY: And it's not just me who can't go in. Karen Kosanovich, her co-worker, another economist, it's a no-go for her too.

KAREN KOSANOVICH: I'm not allowed in Megan's office suite at this moment.

BARKER: Even with 1,500 people in here, not everyone has access to our suite. And even people within our suite, don't have access to certain parts of our suite. So that's just the first level of defense.

KENNEY: Did you catch that? The first level of defense. The ladies explained to me that Megan's office suite is under lockdown. Unless you have related work inside, there's no getting in. It's not just Megan's office. The maintenance crew doesn't collect trash in the days leading up to a release. The IT department is also kept away. Computer problems? Tough luck. So what exactly is going on in there that's so top secret?

Inside, economists are sifting through data from thousands of employers and people around the country. Each month, the BLS surveys about 140,000 businesses and government agencies. But don't even think about asking these economists who's on the list. Is the BLS in it? I mean, are you part of the data?

BARKER: Can I say that?

KOSANOVICH: Who is and who isn't in the survey is not something we can comment on.

KENNEY: Megan Barker's office puts out the numbers that tell us how many jobs the U.S. economy added or lost in the previous months. This is a number that Wall Street is watching really closely. She and a handful of other people know it by Tuesday, but they're under strict rules not to tell anyone.

BARKER: We keep it very secret. I know my parents ask me every Tuesday, so what do you think? I'm like, well, what do you think? So, I mean, I even have to be secretive with my parents.

KENNEY: Megan and her colleagues have to keep this secret until 8:30 a.m. on the day of the release. Journalists who stand by at the Labor Department can get the numbers a half hour early, but they can't talk about them until precisely 8:30 a.m., even if it means sitting there for several long seconds of dead air.

(SOUNDBITE OF NEWS PROGRAM)

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: Well, CNBC's Hampton Pearson joins us now from the Labor Department with the numbers. Mr. Hampton.

KENNEY: That was CBNC's Hampton Pearson covering December's release, and that was a Labor Department employee you heard in the background. He was counting down the seconds until Hampton Pearson was allowed to speak. Caitlin Kenney, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.